By Meriem Al Jaber

A SAUDI boy named Ahmad Rakan Al-Shammari was offered the Medal of Courage by the Mayo Clinic in the United States for his humane and magnanimous conduct toward his brother to whom he donated bone marrow. One of the boy’s most oft-quoted phrases was : “If my brother needs anything else while I’m under anesthesia please take it.”

Al Arabiya contacted his father Rakan Al-Shammari who is currently with both of his children in the United States. As conveyed by the father, Ahmad’s little brother namely Ziyad suffers from an acute form of leukemia and has undergone previously chemotherapy treatment in Saudi Arabia, but with no success.

Ziyad was transferred to the Mayo Clinic in the United States where all of Al-Shammari family members were tested for a bone marrow potential donor.

Ahmed was the perfect match for Ziyad. Ahmad’s mother was reluctant at first as she was afraid of the consequences of such an operation, but Ahmad’s resilience and insistence to donate his bone marrow to his little brother convinced both parents.

Prior to the operation, the young boy was questioned by the doctors in charge. The doctors assured Ahmad that he was in no way obliged to proceed with the operation or to donate bone marrow, but the young boy’s answers fully convinced the medical team.

The operation was carried out last Thursday.

In the operating room, the medical team operated along a translator and when they demanded of the boy if he wanted anything before being anesthetized his response was: “Yes, if my brother needs anything else while I am still under anesthesia, please take it and do not return it to me”.

While the translator was conveying Ahmad’s wishes, the medical team was touched by the boy’s words. Afterwards, some team members couldn’t hold their composure and had even to leave the operating room.

The father further added that the operation succeeded by the grace of God and considered it a good omen that it coincided with the date of the Saudi National Holiday. He also confirmed that Ahmad’s health was good and that the boy already left the hospital while Ziyad was still in intensive care.

Furthermore, he stated that the treatment plan needed 100 days to reap any concrete form of success and continued by saying that: “We will stay in America for 3 months to be reassured of Ziyad’s health.”

In addition, Al-Shammari explains that he works in the Ministry of Health in Hafar Al-Batin and took a leave of one year from work, which ends in the month of Rabee Al-Awwal, to foresee his child’s condition.

The father has four children, one of whom he barely saw since she was born. In fact, his daughter Jawhara is about one year old now.

Moreover, he explained that in the past 9 months upon learning of Ziyad’s leukemia, Al-Shammari’s wife was also pregnant at that time, and was about to give birth. Yet by turn of fate, while Ziyad was brought to Dammam to undergo treatment in a specialized hospital, his mother gave birth to the little girl in the King Fahad Specialist Hospital. The two facilities where both mother and child stayed were adjacent and only separated by a wall. A few days later, other Al-Shammari family members were entrusted with the newborn child “Jawhara”.

The parents have not seen her since then as they have been taking care of Ziyad for 11 months traveling with him to the United States when the chemotherapy treatment failed. — Al Arabiya English